


The Essence of Wanting

by 3White_Mage3



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3White_Mage3/pseuds/3White_Mage3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck had jaeger flies available at the snap of his fingers. He had people at his disposal who were more than ready and willing to slip a note into the hand of the young woman or the older, military-looking man who had caught his eye, whoever was lucky enough to have caught his eye, to meet the need that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Essence of Wanting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jujitsuelf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujitsuelf/gifts).



Chuck wasn't used to wanting, at least wanting without relief at some point. He knew what it was to crave and to need, to ache for something, of course, but he also knew how to get that which he wanted. And that meant working, achieving, obtaining, demanding his due, demanding to be acknowledged for his achievements, for his edge, for doing what so few others did or could do, for his sacrifices. The young pilot had fought, scratched, and he had taken everything the world had thrown at him and thrown it down symbolically on the kwon mat under his booted foot. And at the end he had swallowed hard and he had turned his head as his eyes burned with tears he would not, could not allow himself to shed, and he had stepped into that jaeger knowing he was on a one-way trip into the breach to save the world.

After that Chuck had jaeger flies available at the snap of his fingers. He had people who grouped around him always at his disposal who were more than ready and willing to slip a note into the hand of the young woman or the older, military-looking man who had caught his eye, whichever person was lucky enough to have caught his eye, to meet the need that night. He had spent more than one night pressed up against the stall wall of a men's room in Houston or in the dark, back room of some club in Berlin with some unnamed Herc-lookalike grunting into him as they both searched for something which just would never be there for Chuck, something that would never be accomplished like that, something which he hadn't been able to sate for years now. Because somehow wiping himself out with a coarse paper towel afterwards wasn't filling the need anymore. It never had actually, but it had gotten him through day by day. Taken the edge off so he could go back and look his dad in the face and pretend to not want for another few hours.

This ongoing "thing" with Herc was a whole other magnitude of wanting and there certainly wasn't a rule book governing this type of thing. In fact, there were a whole lot of rule books ranging from the Christian Bible to the Torah to the Koran prohibiting it, but then again, who among those so-called authors or readers of same had ever saved the world? Or even tried to? Okay, maybe a couple of the central figures in those books might have had a claim on saving the world or at least the world's souls, but who had the right to judge and to measure? Wasn't there somewhere in that selfless act called sealing the breach that said he had the right to ask this one thing of the universe and maybe, perhaps be given it? He had never asked much he couldn't get for himself. He had never wanted too much, at least as he understood it. 

Chuck had sacrificed a lot to save whatever was left of this world, but he wasn't any longer the golden, flawless boy wonder. After a while and a few two many emotional meltdowns in front of the cameras the press didn't seek him out the way they did Mako and Rah-leigh. He was physically flawed now, scarred, limping and physically asymmetrical. Not the perfect hero the world pictured in its collective mind of the savior type. Certainly not the type they could hold up in front of their children and say, "see, anything is possible".

But Herc. Hercules still stood there like, well his namesake. Grandmother Hansen sure the fuck knew what she was doing when she named him, didn't she?

Herc's hands. Oh lord in heaven -- and anyone is welcome to define that deity any way they want, Chuck would always say. Those hands. He knew intellectually that they had cradled him as a baby and as a boy, providing him safety and giving him comfort when the other boys had tormented the little ginger, and they were the hands that had held him and protected him when his mother was killed in the attack on Sydney. Chuck viewed those hands with mixed regard, he understood that they could chastise and they could punish but they could also cherish and he knew for a fact that they could comfort. And that right there was the mixed blessing of Herc's hands, the thought that kept him awake many nights.

Herc's scruff. Chuck had tried to grow something similar and had given up, realizing it was just another way his old man continued to out-man him in the marathon of life. Herc's scruff, which Chuck would never over the pain of death admit felt so damned good against his own skin on those rare occasions when Herc pulled him in close and hugged him like he was the only thing in this world which mattered. 

Herc's eyes. How many people in this world could possibly contend that they had seen even one one-hundredth of what the now-Marshall's eyes had seen? Chuck loved, although he would swallow nails before admitting it, the crows feet that graced his father's eyes, the symbols of so much wisdom gained by so much hurt. No one had seen so much, so many wonders unimagined and so many horrors unwished for. And yet when Chuck is feeling generous, he also has to admit from his own experience that those same eyes could light up with such unmitigated joy and pleasure. Herc's eyes are the key to Herc's soul and Chuck desperately wanted to find his way in. To possess that key so he could lock out all the world's pain and hurt and create a private garden for just the two of them.

Herc's shoulders. Fuck. In some ways, the epitome of a man's masculinity. The aspect by which men are judged, to many. Those shoulders that are supposed to bear the weight of the world, pull the plow, bear the armor, row back the oar, cradle the child. Herc had borne more than enough of the world's pain, and yet he stood there -- in the eyes of the world -- unbowed. No one needed to know of the nights when the Marshall sank into his sheets at night crushed with the memories of all that was and all that never should have been lost. And those were the nights when Chuck was there to hold him and reassure him that he had done more than anyone could have asked of one man. The nights when Chuck would be told to go back to his own bed when all he wanted to do was hold the man who was the key to everything. Always had been the key to everything.

Herc's arms. The arms that underpin the strength of Striker Eureka and yet were covered in the freckles incumbent upon any ginger, no matter how masculine. The arms that Chuck spent most nights going to bed dreaming of because it was only those arms, those biceps, those thick, sturdy wrists, which could keep the demons at bay at night. And how Chuck wanted to go to sleep -- just one night -- wrapped in those arms because he knew that would be the best, most blessed night's sleep ever.

Herc's chest. The centerpiece of everything that is Herc. The red hair-lined slabs of muscle that define his dad, as far as Chuck is concerned. The pecs that Chuck would love to grab onto while Herc pounded into him, if he were ever so lucky. And the cradle for Chuck's head if he were every so lucky as to be held in his father's arms afterwards as they both drifted off to a night's sleep with, for once, no nightmares of monsters from the deep.

And yeah, he thought more than a bit about Herc's package. It was amazing that his father had managed to hide the goods even during all the communal showers of the jaeger program and even from glimpses during the Draft. How much effort does it take to shield all that during the Drift, after all? Plus his dad was always careful to towel up after training or slip away into the bathroom before emerging in his underwear to slip into bed at night. What was the old man hiding? And fuck yeah it bothered Chuck that fucking Rah-leigh of all fucking people had first hand experience, if the rumors from Manila were true. Chuck knew Herc was gifted, he had overheard enough next morning debriefs by jaeger sluts of both genders to know.

Chuck went to bed alone yet again, another night in an endless series of nights without any relief from the wanting in sight. He was starting to believe that it was the want that was going to kill him, accomplish what neither kaiju nor injuries had accomplished. The want of those hands, those shoulders, and the unending desire to seek solace against that broad chest. The chance to look into those eyes and understand that he doesn't need to want anymore. That the wanting could stop.


End file.
